Soldato
I sat at the end of last year in a bar in the alps and we were chatting bucket list things we'd love to do in life. A lot of mine is travel and experiences. One of which was my Arctic circle trip and some of them are huge things I never thought I'd do for a long time.
One of those things was buying an RX7 in Japan and driving it back to my home in France.
Something so out there, I didn't know how, but knew I wanted to try.
A few things since then changed and I was told I was facing almost certain redundancy at work and while I'd normally be thinking "****, I should look for another job..." I just thought, you know what? I think I want to just go on adventures in cars and create some content around there and see what happens. Hence the arctic thing came about.
For some reason since then, I posted a tiktok about buying an RX7 in Japan and driving it home because it's cheaper and chatgpt says it is... so I should do it. Which had a rather decent amount of reach (just over 600k across insta and tiktok at present) and I was like, you know what? I should just do it.
The only things holding me back were work and the self limiting belief that I could do it... but I know I can. Everything is work out able.
So I started to see if it was even possible.
It's 13,750km or there abouts. The route is subject to change based on so many factors and that's not even the hardest part (I'm sure many of you would disagree, cue "lol russia bla")
Buying a car in Japan isn't possible for a foreigner.
The reg plates are government owned and you need to have an address and parking place assigned.
Exports of cars are deregistered, so it's not possible to drive a japanese car out of japan, unless you have a japanese address.
This was my first problem to solve.
I knew I could BUY a car and have it exporting to France, that's simple. But, that isn't the mission. I'm not after simple, I'm after an adventure and to create an epic video series about this.
I thought it was a dead end until I spoke to the guy nextdoor who did all the paperwork on my range rover for me and he said it's no problem. I can get WW (temp plates) for france and drive it back on those. I'll have full paperwork for the car then, in my name.
Holy **** I might be able to do this?!
As the tiktok blew up a little, I had a comment on one of them from Top Rank Europe.
Now, Top Rank in Japan are one of the most well known exporters and all of the big youtubers use them. They have some of the most epic cars and some of the rarest JDM cars you can think of. They have a service that allows you to keep your car there, typically for US people, because of their 25yr rule, before they're allowed to import them into the US.
He shot me a message and I thought sweet, are you in south of france or somewhere like that? I should come and see you guys to chat.
He calls me up and tells me he's based 40min north of my house... what?!
I'm heading up to his next week to start the search for some JDM beauties.
He's going to not only help me source them in Japan, but so much more.
The PLAN?
Date: June 2025
I'm going to start to look for the cars now. I'm ready to buy as of now, but so many people say this takes some time to find the right ones.
This will start with a meeting with him next week.
I'm then going to go to Japan in June and he's going to put me in touch with all his people and contacts over there to see all of their stuff. That'll be the second part and we can discuss the work that will be done on the car prior to the trip.
I plan to have a rebuild done on the car over the 12 months between now and road trip time.
If it takes some time to find the car, that's also OK. I have time and I'm patient but knowing I'm having a rebuild done means I can wait a bit as well as go with a higher KM car if needs be.
I said "cars" not car. That's because I'm planning on picking up 2... maybe a 3rd if things line up right. The second is a Kei truck. Something like a Honda Acty as a support vehicle.
I've had hundreds of messages of people who want to come on this adventure, from producers to videographers to downright degenerates like me.
I'm going to start the process to look for those people later in the year which will include a whole meet and greet to make sure everyone passes that vibe check and is serious to commit to such a thing.
The 3rd car is a stretch goal. An R34 skyline.
Good road trip car
and will allow more people to potentially come along for the ride. This depends on how things pan out for this adventure in the next 8 months really.
Next June my whole family is flying to Tokyo for a week family holiday.
Me and my son are staying on for a week in Japan to do some exploring on the roads there and create some content in Japan for a week.
Then, we'll get the Ferry with whoever is signed up at that point over to Russia to start the trip back.
Russian visas, contrary to popular internet belief, are not hard to get.
I spoke to someone who actually did the trip to Scotland from Japan (but was a Japanese resident so no issue with car papers) and said while people **** on the roads online, he drove them and they're totally fine.
My route as you get closer to Europe really depends on the state of play in certain places in the world. At present the Belarus borders (according to the internet) are unmanned and if you enter using them and don't get stamped you're illegally in the country which can lead to stuff I don't want to deal with.
The other option is going in via Georgia and Turkey.
But that arguably doesn't matter. It is all figure out able.
The fact is, I wrote the most insane notion out of something I would dream of doing and suddenly it all laid itself out for me in how to make it all a reality.
I can't wait to add this to the memory bank because what an experience.
I'll keep this updated as things happen, or you can follow the journey on insta/youtube/tiktok but I can't link it
And that's how the road to rotary came to be.
One of those things was buying an RX7 in Japan and driving it back to my home in France.
Something so out there, I didn't know how, but knew I wanted to try.
A few things since then changed and I was told I was facing almost certain redundancy at work and while I'd normally be thinking "****, I should look for another job..." I just thought, you know what? I think I want to just go on adventures in cars and create some content around there and see what happens. Hence the arctic thing came about.
For some reason since then, I posted a tiktok about buying an RX7 in Japan and driving it home because it's cheaper and chatgpt says it is... so I should do it. Which had a rather decent amount of reach (just over 600k across insta and tiktok at present) and I was like, you know what? I should just do it.
The only things holding me back were work and the self limiting belief that I could do it... but I know I can. Everything is work out able.
So I started to see if it was even possible.
It's 13,750km or there abouts. The route is subject to change based on so many factors and that's not even the hardest part (I'm sure many of you would disagree, cue "lol russia bla")
Buying a car in Japan isn't possible for a foreigner.
The reg plates are government owned and you need to have an address and parking place assigned.
Exports of cars are deregistered, so it's not possible to drive a japanese car out of japan, unless you have a japanese address.
This was my first problem to solve.
I knew I could BUY a car and have it exporting to France, that's simple. But, that isn't the mission. I'm not after simple, I'm after an adventure and to create an epic video series about this.
I thought it was a dead end until I spoke to the guy nextdoor who did all the paperwork on my range rover for me and he said it's no problem. I can get WW (temp plates) for france and drive it back on those. I'll have full paperwork for the car then, in my name.
Holy **** I might be able to do this?!
As the tiktok blew up a little, I had a comment on one of them from Top Rank Europe.
Now, Top Rank in Japan are one of the most well known exporters and all of the big youtubers use them. They have some of the most epic cars and some of the rarest JDM cars you can think of. They have a service that allows you to keep your car there, typically for US people, because of their 25yr rule, before they're allowed to import them into the US.
He shot me a message and I thought sweet, are you in south of france or somewhere like that? I should come and see you guys to chat.
He calls me up and tells me he's based 40min north of my house... what?!
I'm heading up to his next week to start the search for some JDM beauties.
He's going to not only help me source them in Japan, but so much more.
The PLAN?
Date: June 2025
I'm going to start to look for the cars now. I'm ready to buy as of now, but so many people say this takes some time to find the right ones.
This will start with a meeting with him next week.
I'm then going to go to Japan in June and he's going to put me in touch with all his people and contacts over there to see all of their stuff. That'll be the second part and we can discuss the work that will be done on the car prior to the trip.
I plan to have a rebuild done on the car over the 12 months between now and road trip time.
If it takes some time to find the car, that's also OK. I have time and I'm patient but knowing I'm having a rebuild done means I can wait a bit as well as go with a higher KM car if needs be.
I said "cars" not car. That's because I'm planning on picking up 2... maybe a 3rd if things line up right. The second is a Kei truck. Something like a Honda Acty as a support vehicle.
I've had hundreds of messages of people who want to come on this adventure, from producers to videographers to downright degenerates like me.
I'm going to start the process to look for those people later in the year which will include a whole meet and greet to make sure everyone passes that vibe check and is serious to commit to such a thing.
The 3rd car is a stretch goal. An R34 skyline.
Good road trip car
and will allow more people to potentially come along for the ride. This depends on how things pan out for this adventure in the next 8 months really. Next June my whole family is flying to Tokyo for a week family holiday.
Me and my son are staying on for a week in Japan to do some exploring on the roads there and create some content in Japan for a week.
Then, we'll get the Ferry with whoever is signed up at that point over to Russia to start the trip back.
Russian visas, contrary to popular internet belief, are not hard to get.
I spoke to someone who actually did the trip to Scotland from Japan (but was a Japanese resident so no issue with car papers) and said while people **** on the roads online, he drove them and they're totally fine.
My route as you get closer to Europe really depends on the state of play in certain places in the world. At present the Belarus borders (according to the internet) are unmanned and if you enter using them and don't get stamped you're illegally in the country which can lead to stuff I don't want to deal with.
The other option is going in via Georgia and Turkey.
But that arguably doesn't matter. It is all figure out able.
The fact is, I wrote the most insane notion out of something I would dream of doing and suddenly it all laid itself out for me in how to make it all a reality.
I can't wait to add this to the memory bank because what an experience.
I'll keep this updated as things happen, or you can follow the journey on insta/youtube/tiktok but I can't link it
And that's how the road to rotary came to be.
